The MA (Hons) in English is a four-year course run by the School of English. In the first two years, students will read and reflect on a broad range of topics across a variety of literary genres from the Middle Ages to the present day. This will equip you with the range of literary experience and critical skills necessary for more in-depth study of specialist subject areas at Honours level.
Specialist subject areas include (but are not limited to):
- Old English literature
- literature and ecology
- Renaissance bodies
- literature and gender
- Victorian culture
- creative writing
- Cold War writing
- world literature.
Alongside English, in the first year of their studies, they will be required to study an additional two subjects. In the second year they will usually carry on at least one of these subjects, sometimes two. Find out more about how academic years are organised.
Breadth of knowledge and perspective are highly encouraged, and all Single Honours students are expected to take at least one module on medieval literature, on early modern literature, and on eighteenth- or nineteenth-century literature. Final year students must also complete a dissertation on a topic chosen in consultation with teaching staff at the School of English.
Graduates in English from St Andrews can expect to have a highly developed sense of independent critical thinking and judgement, be alert to the possibilities of expressive language, and will have developed both a broad, and - in some areas - a deep knowledge of literature in English.
The University of St Andrews operates on a flexible modular degree system by which degrees are obtained through the accumulation of credits.
